IMMIGRATION: Border Patrol to close Riverside office

Immigration rights activists lauded an announcement that the Riverside office of the U.S. Border Patrol will be closing within six months, while critics of the plan said the absence of Inland agents will leave the region open to drug running, human trafficking and other criminal activity.

The closure is part of a nationwide effort to direct more resources closer to the border. In addition to Riverside, the Border Patrol is shutting down six satellites in Texas and one each in Idaho and Montana.

âThe fact theyâre further inland and away from the border was the reason given,â said Armando Garcia, a supervisory border patrol agent with the Border Patrolâs El Centro sector, which includes Riverside.

The Riverside office has attracted controversy, including protests in 2009 amid accusations of arrest quotas by agents and racial profiling.

All nine agents in the Riverside office are being offered a transfer to Murrieta, Garcia said Tuesday, July 10.

Despite the closure, patrols and details will continue in the Riverside-San Bernardino area, and relationships with Inland law-enforcement agencies â" which in the past have led to deportations of illegal immigrants detained by local police â" will continue, he said.

But Andy Ramirez, president of the nonprofit Law Enforcement Officers Advocates Council based in Chino, said the closure will leave a gap in enforcement. The most dangerous illegal immigrants who bypass border security are captured in inspections and raids by agents from the interior office, he said.

Ramirez called the plan a âcapitulation to the Mexican governmentâ by the Obama administration.

âThey claim theyâre sending these resources to the border. You can link 30,000 agents arm in arm across the border and thatâs not going to do anything,â Ramirez said. âThis is a post-9/11 world. We donât know whoâs coming through the borders anymore.â

Emilio Amaya, executive director of the San Bernardino Community Service Center, which provides legal assistance and counseling on immigration issues, said he is pleased with the announcement because of the officeâs âhistory of abuses in our community.â

The 2008 quota system â" which the agency denied existed â" prompted the detention of almost 300 people over several months, most of them day laborers who didnât have access to legal services or family support, Amaya said.

Amaya was among the protesters who rallied at the Riverside office in 2009 after Border Patrol agents boarded a bus and arrested five passengers on immigration charges, and after allegations that the Riverside office had arrest quotas.

Protests also were held in 2009 after Riverside police called the Border Patrol following the arrest of 12 day laborers on relatively minor charges. Eleven were detained on immigration charges.

âMost of the people that would be apprehended were not the criminals they were supposed to be looking for. They were members of the community, with family who were U.S. residents,â Amaya said.

Riverside Border Patrol agents stop cars that may carry illegal immigrants or are involved in smuggling, and conduct investigations based upon intelligence the office receives, according to the agency. The El Centro sector, which includes parts of Riverside and San Bernardino counties, arrested more than 30,000 suspected illegal immigrants from October 2010 to September 2011.

Lombardo Amaya, a Border Patrol agent and president of the agentsâ union, who is not related to Emilio Amaya, said many of the Border Patrolâs duties were supposed to be taken over by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, created in 2003. But ICE doesnât have the manpower, he said.

âI donât see the need to close the (Riverside) station,â he said. âWe have enough people in the El Centro sector. I donât know why they say they need more people on the front.â

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